


How She Haunted Our Home

by ifwallscouldspeak



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifwallscouldspeak/pseuds/ifwallscouldspeak
Summary: The first time Katherine spots Bonnie, she’s sure she’s seeing a ghost.(Inspired by the prompt “I dreamt about you last night.”)





	How She Haunted Our Home

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Pompeii” by Bear’s Den. 
> 
> This takes place sometime before the season 1 finale and I'll never forgive the writers for Katherine not having a deeper interest in Bonnie, all (Emily-related) things considered. 
> 
> Written for my personal [Femslash February](http://lo-cotidiano.tumblr.com/tagged/jennifer+does+femslash+february) challenge :)

+++

 

The first time Katherine spots Bonnie, she’s sure she’s seeing a ghost.

“Emily?”

The name slips past her lips before she can stop it, a knot forming high and tight in her throat. And there it is, the only bit of remorse and guilt that she’s felt in the past hundred years, give or take. It’s snuck up on her, surprised her. She allows it to wash over her, just for a moment, just for the novelty of it, she supposes. Because nothing surprises her, not now; not after centuries of being on the run, or anticipating everyone else’s move just so that she can survive.

Katherine stands almost frozen in place, a gentle breeze lifting her curls slightly over her shoulders. Her eyes are glued to the young woman, standing almost across the town square, laughing with that insipid blonde and her - ugh - goody two shoes doppelgänger. But then the young woman turns, and something runs through Katherine; It’s a mixture of disappointment and relief, an emotion that usually simmers on low in the back of her mind every time she manages to run fast enough.

Because this woman - it’s not her Emily. No matter how similar she carries herself or how silky the slope of her neck looks, even from this distance. Katherine turns her head slightly, honing her hearing to listen to the trio, gossiping, no doubt, about something foolish. The blonde has her head thrown back, laughing as she slings her arm over the young woman’s shoulder. Her doppelgänger trails behind them, giggling.

The whole sight of it makes Katherine roll her eyes.  It’s been decades since she’s felt jealousy for that kind of easy female companionship; bearing witness to it now is just annoying.

“Bonnie Sheila Bennett!” the blonde cackles.

The surprise shoots through Katherine again and she almost wants to stamp her foot in annoyance. She’s much too old and too dignified to actually do it, of course. But the fact that she’s been shocked twice in the past few minutes is something that has her grinding her teeth.

A Bennett?

It could be, of course, that the girl is no relation. There must be hundreds of Bennetts just in the Eastern seaboard of the United States alone, none of them having anything to do with Emily. But something deep in her gut - her survival instinct, if one would - is thrumming along to her heartbeat. And she knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that this Bonnie Bennett is somehow, some way, a descendant of Emily. And isn’t it ironic, she thinks mildly, that this Bennett is in the company of this particular Petrova.

“Look, I’ll meet you at the Grill, I just need to check something out at the bookstore,” Bonnie’s saying.

Her friends try to cajole her into going right with them, but Bonnie shakes her head with an obstinate look on her face. The vision of it, before her, makes Katherine’s mouth go dry. She has the same essence to her - the same _je n’ai sais quoi_ \- that Emily always had to her. It’s the same look Emily would give to spineless men as they simpered for wealth and power or to lackluster women begging for love potions and a male heir.

It’s the same look that always had Katherine going to her knees, head between Emily’s legs, in her bedchamber.

Without quite meaning to, Katherine finds herself following the young Bennett to the bookstore. She keeps fifty paces behind her, of course; Katherine may be acting foolishly but she’s still smart, in this moment. Even with her disguise - her hair up in one of those ridiculous ponytail things and a baseball cap and ugh, sweatpants - she can’t be mistaken for the  doppelgänger. Not while her plan is still in motion and she has to ensure that her young descendant and that stupid Gilbert do what they’re told.

Katherine hides in the shadows as Bonnie goes right for the section labeled _Supernatural and Unexplained Phenomenon_. Something threatens to crack inside her ribs - though it stays strong, because it always does - as Katherine watches her. Bonnie’s bottom lip is between her teeth, worrying at it, in the exact same way that Emily used to do when creating a new spell. It reminds Katherine so much of when they were young, when they had first met, that she has to remind herself to breathe.

She had a soft spot for the Mikaelsons and she was enchanted by the Salvatore brothers, of course. But ever since she spotted Emily Bennett outside of Salem all those years ago, about to be locked up and carted away because she had no papers - she had been hooked. Emily was unlike anyone else she had met, be they vampire, witch or human. She was… fixed.

Katherine had already been alive a long time by the time she met Emily. By then, the only thing that mattered was survival, was herself. She had learned the hard way that family, love, even status - all of those things meant nothing in comparison to the self. Other creatures were ephemeral, things to be used and then discarded once they were no longer useful.

But Emily.

Emily was different.

Emily held her when she finally cried, almost 400 years later, over the child she never got to see grow up. Emily stayed up with her for hours, talking about all their plans, for a better life together once they got rid of those who wronged them. Emily had rolled around in bed with her, naked and moaning, every time after Katherine had fed and was feeling sinful afterwards. Emily held her hand, tucked her into dresses, wiped her tears, brushed her hair, kissed her neck and stole into her heart. She was the only one who stayed, the only one who knew the true darkness of Katherine’s soul and loved her for it anyway.

Giving her up to the Founder’s Council was the hardest thing Katherine had ever had to do, besides having her newborn child ripped from her arms. And for hundreds of years, Katherine pushed that guilt down. When she did dream, it was always of Emily. Of her flashing eyes, condemning her and her slim fingers pushing inside her.

It was agony but it was nothing Katherine couldn’t handle, because no one handled pain better than she did. She told herself that Emily would have done it to her first, eventually; not on purpose, no. She was too loyal and steadfast for that. But all humans are fragile and they slip up. And no matter how different Emily was, she was not infallible.

Before her, Bonnie shifts, thumbing through a positively boring looking book on gemstones. Katherine almost wants to laugh, almost wants to reach out and move the girl’s hair and press her teeth into her neck. Bonnie just stands there, engrossed in her book, not even aware of Katherine’s presence behind her. She can almost hear Emily’s annoyed voice in her head, then. _What has my family taught her? At that age, I could sense a vampire a mile off_.

Something in Katherine aches then, and she wants to lash out. She wants to spill Bonnie’s blood and see if it’s anything like Emily’s. She wants to know if Emily would come to her then, beyond the whispers of her nightmares and her guilt. To condemn her or absolve her of everything she’s done. She doesn't though. And she doesn’t lie to herself and pretend it’s because she needs to lay low, for the plan. She knows it’s because in this moment, she can allow herself softness. She can give this one to Emily and her descendants and leave her be, in the pretend security of the bookstore.

Because the next time they meet, Katherine knows she cannot afford to be charitable.

 

+++


End file.
